This...I don't even know how to describe this... I'm not even sure where exactly this came from, or why precisely I'm posting it at the moment. I have a great deal of this written down - and I do mean written, I wrote the first five chapters in a notebook and now I'm dealing with the fun task of typing it all up and editing it - and nearly ready to post, and have had it as such for quite a while now. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to post it until I was done with Contentment, but since that has now taken on a life of its own and is looking like it is going to be a longer fic, I figured I might as well just throw this puppy out there for the world to see. I am still going to be working on Contentment and it will be my priority fic, I'm afraid to say, as this one is so...well, draining that dedicating too much time to it might just make my mind implode.
A warning - and it is very important that this is read - this is a rather dark story, much darker than anything I have written before, and it does involve some rather sensitive subjects. I have tried not to be insensitive or tasteless in my writing - and I absolutely refuse to go into details or go to deeply into the scenes throughout this story - though I am aware that just posting this story may very well be viewed as such. I am open to any thoughts on the matter, and if anyone does feel strongly that this story should be taken down I will do so without argument. This will, eventually, be a Hiei/Botan fic, though it will take quite some time to get there.
On a lighter note, the title of this story is from one of my favorite poems of one of my favorite poets and the poem itself had a great deal of influence on my writing of this story. I'm not going to say what poem or poet, as I am going to issue a little challenge to my readers ;) I'll write a one-shot (whatever topic or pairing or whatnot) for the first person to correctly identify the poem and its author. More than a little cocky on my behalf that you would want me to write you something? You bet. Am I going to do it anyway? Absolutely :)
Reviews are loved and reviewers worshiped and concrit absolutely adored.
I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or its many wonderful characters.
- Sin
Behind Ourself Concealed
Prologe: LXX
She died, - this was the way she died;
It was not the first time Koenma had sent her out on her own for a task. Yusuke could complain all he liked about the amount of missions the toddler prince sent him on, but he had no idea what the work load of the average Ferrier of the Dead was like. A few assignments every month or so with three strong fighters at his back – while, yes, incredibly dangerous – really wasn't anything to write home about for the servants of Enma and his godling son. Let alone when compared to the long list of impossible tasks rested on her weary shoulders on a daily basis. For those such as herself, death was a very real threat with a very slim chance of avoidance.
She wasn't dismissing the insane missions the little team she loved so dearly were given not in the slightest. The things they were sent off to do terrified her, worried her until she was physically ill over their safety. It was all very well and good for a demi-god to send the ragtag group of fighters off on what usually amounted to a suicide mission, Koenma was removed from the mortals he commanded, what did he know of true worry? He was closer than his far-distant father, yes, but still observing everything through a thick pane of glass. A child watching a show of his own orchestrating, a mere boy playing with his living toys. Ordering her to complete a task that would ultimately end in death was one thing; she was a simple creature of Reikai, little better than a machine that had been crafted to serve her all powerful masters. If she was given a command then she obeyed, there was no declining, no requesting another task or being too frightened to do as ordered. She carried on, "yes sir" and a smile, off to whatever fate her masters' wishes would bring. If she failed then others would be sent to succeed, if she succeeded there were other tasks waiting. A little machine, a toy, a pawn, something useful but easily replaced.
Her boys though…
She loved all of them more than any aspect of death should love living creatures. Each one holding a special place in her old and dusty heart. Each one more precious to her than any treasure or power or promise. For them alone she would sacrifice everything, turn her back on her Realm and Masters, turn the three worlds upside down. Seeing them hurt, seeing them injured and in pain and so close to death…it destroyed her a little more each and every time. Shattered a fragile part of her that could not be regained once lost.
But that wasn't the point at the moment. The point at the moment was that she had been sent on another errand. Something small, a typical task from Koenma that was the closest thing to a vacation any servant of Reikai would ever get to having. A quick retrieval run, a little lost and found mission for an object that was generally regarded by Enma or his son as not terribly important or powerful, but something that was best kept locked away in the Vault on the off-chance ignoring it would come back to bite them all in the ass. The only reason she had been sent was that it had, in fact, once been stashed away in the vault and a careless young Koenma had lost it in the River Styx some centuries ago.
The Eye of Tsuyo-sa.
Relatively it was thought to be a benign sort of artifact. Ancient and shrouded in secrets, like all the best things were. Its power was limited once removed from the ancient, gnarled staff it had been bound to long ago. The staff, of course, was safely tucked away in Enma's treasure room and out of reach of any one too hungry for their own good. The loss of the staff rendered the jewel that crowned it little better than a murky-looking ruby in most hands. Pretty, true, but useless unless someone was familiar with the centuries old ritual and long-dead language that activated the gleaming artifact. To her knowledge, no one living did, not that that particular fact mattered to those who handed out the various missions.
As per her usual for the past two hundred years or so, she was on her own for the run. She had been wrapped in clothing only slightly better suited to her task then her beloved pink kimono, sweltering in the thick fabric under the harsh summer sun. Hers were fine clothes in the bright colors of Enma's palace, articles she was to wear that would do more to attract attention to her than they ever could do something practical but protocol demanded her and other servants to wear while on such missions. It shouldn't have mattered what she wore though; she would be sniffing through a particularly lonely stretch of the human realm, there shouldn't have been anything for her to worry about. It was true that her destination was close to the Makai border, but she was still in the relatively safest of the three realms. It all should have been simple. Of course, such things were always meant to be simple, never actually turning out the way they had been planned in one way or another, but still…This time though…this time when things went wrong it was different. Worse.
She hadn't expected Them.
A group twenty-something strong of demons, rogues on the run from Makai for their horrible deeds, huddled just on the human side of the border waiting for the right time to slip back to their native lands.
They hadn't been waiting for her; it hadn't been some grand plan to lure her in so they could ambush her or a clever ploy to capture a Reikai spirit. It was a simple trick of fate, unfortunate, but still just a twist of life. She hadn't known they would be there, they hadn't known she would come. If it had ended differently, happier, it might have been comical. Something seen in one of the cartoons Kuwabara was so fond of watching on early weekend mornings over bowls of sugary cereal. Surprised gazes meeting one another, a long pause, a shout and then a chase scene to upbeat gag music with a number of doors being run in and out of before the hero finally escaped in a feat of desperation and over-dramatics. Another day another commercial break.
Except it wasn't like that.
A band of demon males, all hungry for the presence of a woman – willing or not – isolated in their attempts to hide from Makai authority and Reikai prison. They outnumbered her and even if they hadn't she was incapable of fending off even the weakest of them on her own. They had been in a cave, she couldn't fly away, couldn't escape. She had known what was going to happen even as she desperately attempted to flee from them, as she bit and clawed and screamed against their clawing hands, as they overwhelmed her and dragged her off to the darkest part of their lair.
When through glinting teeth and malevolent gazes they crooned and cawed about what they were going to do to her it had all become a matter of accepting the horrible reality of the situation. She realized after they left her, huddled and shivering and brutalized, that there really wasn't any way she would have gotten out of the mission unscathed. There had been no chance of the happy, victorious return or a quick relaxed errand run.
It only could have ended one way.